Make Fascism Unprofessional Again
They do care about their career, after all
Sorry for the absence, again. I’m not done writing, hopefully the opposite. I just moved across the country which I of course will be writing a lot about as I sort through my thoughts and experiences.
Today’s article prompted by my discovery that Mayor Joe Petty’s chief of staff is no longer in that position.
I discovered this accidentally.
It seems since now everyone is paying attention to city meetings, they’re trying to obfuscate it by making the agendas overwhelming, including taking away the city calendar from the website and making it take MORE clicks to read attachments from agendas.
I shouldn’t need ten windows open to compare documents from the same page, but the city seems to pick systems that are clunky for constituents to navigate. For example, you used to be able to just go and type a name in a search bar and see if there is a business matching it, and now instead it’s this convoluted shitshow.
So, I was going through the city council agenda, and noticed that they’re trying to ban signs from the city council chamber (A process originally prompted by my “Vote For Change” sign, not the Silence is Violence one froma few weeks before it, or the Trans flags they tried prevent a few weeks before that) as well as changing the rules to gatekeep petitions through councilors, rather than allowing the people to petition the council themselves.
They’re trying to change the rules, and do so FAST in an agenda that is quite packed with various issues.
To ensure that people know it’s being discussed, and start conversations about the impact, I send en email to a bunch of Worcester employees with the attachments that detailed this
Vangjeli Petition Process Communication.pdf
Vangjeli Signage Communication.pdf
And lo and behold, got this back
I am assuming she quit, because she either
A ) realized doing their job was not aligned with their values and/or no longer made them feel good doing it
B ) Became concerned it would impact their ability to get another job in the future if they remained in that position
I guess it’s also possible she made some egregious mistake and got fired, but I get the impression Worcester doesn’t do that, and frankly think it would have happened by now if it was going to.
Good for her.
Our first conversation was incredible. I was sitting next to her at the mayoral debate in 2023, hosted by the research bureau at mechanics hall. They announced that there would be thirteen questions, and she said that would be her thirteen reasons why, a horribly inappropriate but fitting joke. I laughed out loud. She asked me what organization I was writing for, introduced herself, and I told her then we wouldn’t be on the same team. She started to talk about how most of the issues Worcester has had been here since before he became Mayor, and I cut her off and acknowledged that none of them might be his fault, but they’ve all been his responsibility, and then the debate started.
She came on Joe’s behalf to the feeble grand opening of my nonprofit, we talked in depth about neurodiverence, and we had a few opportunities to chat in depth in the hallway at city hall - her positions were always well thought out and she knew what to say.
I wonder if that Stand For Justice has been there the full time.
To be clear, I always liked and respected Eliana. She’s proudly a first generation American, and passionate about civics. I think she believes Mayor Petty has been following the will of the voters, and wasn’t bothered enough by the gap between city hall and the rest of the city.
I think she’s been making Joe seem competent for a long while, and am excited to see his public presentation decline under whoever is willing to take the job under these circumstances.
I’m happy for her that she got out, not all people in her position can afford to leave the benefits - finding a job in Worcester isn’t easy these days.
I think beginning to get uninvited to things, and having to ask permission from the space host, rather than event host to attend the Juneteenth flag raising after it was moved from city hall may have been one of her final straws. But also, people do not want to have their names and faces attached to these issues.
They don’t want to have to defend when they were “Just Following Orders” to their friends and social circle, and know that becoming a point of controversy significantly hinders their ability to find future jobs in the public sector.
We can work towards that, or alternatively demonstrate to them that what they’re doing is not actually aligned with their values - because you have to remember that not just are many of these city employees overall good people with great intentions, who are within these systems surviving month to month too.
In the Cease and Desist/No Trespassing letter sent to me by Eric Batista, I was accused of publicly shaming city employees, and in my response I asserted in a footnote that “Public Officials are subject to public scrutiny, and it is well established that criticism of their official conduct does not lose its constitutional protection merely because it is effective criticism and hence diminishes their official reputation”, this legally protected behavior, so let me explain why I think this is a good thing.
Shame and comfort are the carrot and the stick for many people. They move away from shame, and towards comfort, often without thinking about it.
Shame is a catalyst for change in a world that prioritizes comfort.
Harmful systems are FULL of people with great intentions, and they maintain their comfort by telling themselves they are doing a good job, and helping people.
As it becomes more and more clear that the things they’re doing are not in fact helping people, those people will begin looking for alternatives more alligned with their actual values.
Now, the problem is that in this problematic systems their front line workers are quite often BIPOC and queer people trying to make things better for their communities, or working their way up these problematic structures to change them from the inside, or just helping their family survive with the benefits of a government job.
To leave a government job because you're uncomfortable in it, rather than needing the benefits and pay to survive in a city that is becoming harder and harder to access food/housing in, is a massive privilege, one that her former colleagues likely do not have. I haven’t reconciled how to deal with that yet, but need to acknowledge it.
So, the solution in my eyes is support, acceptance, and being more welcoming than the other side. We need levels of community, where our out most exterior layer is welcoming to people who were harmful before, and then the next one is educational and supportive to people who want to start being good.
Most white men start off as assholes, unless they grew up with exceptionally incredible parents and communities and a lot of support - I had most of that, and still had to learn a ton in my 20s and 30s to not be harmful, and it’s an ongoing practice.
For people in political offices, like them, it’s a balancing act of impact vs intent that is out of their hands. It’s often not that they don’t care, or even that they’re unaware of these systems, and they certainly don’t want to be in them.
So help them out of it. They sometimes need to be reminded of either their impact or their values.
Likewise, some of these people went into public service because they felt it was the best way to uplift others - they have a conscience - and we can appeal to that.
Survival under capitalism seems to be the struggle they can relate to most. So even if they don’t have a conscience, they care about their career.
Be efficient and go for both when speaking about/to them - but also willing to step back as soon as they do, and know they may not be able to as early as they want.